Fun with family.

This last weekend we had Grandma and Grandpa Tobler along with Brooke and Steven stay with us. Michael graduated from Dental school the Friday before Memorial day, so they came for that and then stayed through the weekend. We had a lot of fun. Friday the kids and I attended the graduation ceremony with everyone and then enjoyed lunch together.

Congratulations to Michael on a long 4 years!

Bran's grandpa Paul Jensen was in town as well for a conference, and so spent the day with us. It was a little confusing for the kids to grasp the concept of 2 grandpas at once. Camden seemed to take to him very well.

This picture was taken of them sitting together with Paul promising candy if we would visit them in Wyoming.

This picture was taken only a few minutes later.

Saturday morning we hiked to the top of the Castle Rock. The rock which our city is named after. It wasn't a very long hike, but with 2 small kids insisting on doing all the walking it was just right. You hiked to the base of the rock and then if you wanted to get to the top of it you had to rock climb up. Grandma stayed down with the kids and the rest of went up to check it out. The kids loved it and have asked to do it again almost daily since then. Here are a few pictures from the hike.

Ready to go!!

This is a picture of the view from about 3/4 of the way up. You can see downtown Castle Rock behind us.

Family photo.

Brian and I on top!
Everyone at the top!

We went to the outlets after lunch and then had a Bar-B-Que at our house with Michael and April, as well as April's parents. Sara Argyle (Brian's cousin) and 3 of her friends had come to Denver for the weekend so they came and ate with us and then Sara and a friend stayed the night with us in our living room.

Sunday evening we went on a walk through some of the bike paths that run through our neighborhood. Maddy and camden love these stairs that go to some sites for new houses.

Camden was a little tired from Saturday's hike.
Brooke slept in Maddy's room with her and Monday night when I was putting her to bed she was so sad that there was no one to sleep in her room with her.

Happy Birthday Brian!

Yesterday was Brian's birthday. Maddy created quite the celebration for him. Unfortunately though his birthday cake did not get the usual effort as the kids' cakes do. Maddy though was the mastermind behind his cake and was very into making a special cake for dad. He is a great husband and dad so he deserved it all!

Eyeliner

The other day I noticed how all too quiet Camden was. So after searching I found him in my bathroom like this.

You can't tell in the picture but he even had put it in his ear.

The funny thing was that he was so proud of himself for putting mommy's make up on his face. He thought he had done nothing wrong. Needless to say then it was awfully hard to be mad at him; just look at that cute face!

Pictures from our trip to Montrose

Story time with uncle Benjamin.

Relaxing in the backyard, probably watching dad and the uncles playing basketball.

Camden as a basketball star!

Maddy as a pretty princess in the backyard. You can't see it in the picture but she had a long strand of bubble wrap as a veil in the back of her hair.

Watch out....Raquel let Maddy paint her nails. She did a great job!

Feeding the ducks. Although you can't see the ducks, because they were not interested in us feeding them.

Family photo near the river.

Maddy and Camden playing at the park with Grandma.

Maddy swinging with Raquel.

Maddy making cookies with Brooke and Raquel.

Just completely worn out!!!

Catching up.

It has been a couple of weeks since we last posted anything, and there are a few events to catch up on. First our biggest news (I think) is about Maddy. Many of you may know that Maddy has been half-way potty trained for over a year now, and we have been battling with her to go "poop" (sorry) on the potty. Well a couple of weeks ago she finally did it and has had no problems since. In addition to this new achievement she has also started wearing underwear to bed. We have had some accidents, but we have more dry nights that wet nights. I guess it will continue to be worth it as long as the dry outweigh the wet! YAY FOR MADDY!!!!!

We also finally broke down and got a double jogging stroller. We found a great deal on a used one on craigslist. We even parted with the old one. So now my new goal is to go running with the kids at least a couple of times a week. We will see if it happens or not. I know one thing if it doesn't quite snowing it won't. Yes that is right we received about 6 inches of snow yesterday morning. I can't believe it is May and I am still dealing with snow!

We attended the Castle Rock kite festival. The kids loved watching all the kites. We took Maddy's kite for her to fly and of course the wind was out of control that day and she let go of it and we watched it fly off. But luck was in our favor because it got caught on another kite and we were able to untangle the two kites and get Maddy's back. We went to the park when they got tired of watching kites. Camden, our monkey, had to climb on the climbing wall and luckily was willing to let Brian help.

We also had Mark and Tawni come to Denver from Grand Junction for a couple of days last week. Mark had a training to attend so Tawni and their cute little girl Roxanne came with him. We had a family dinner Wednesday night here at our place and April was able to make it to that as well. It was a lot of fun. Thursday Tawni and I took the kids on a shopping excursion at the mall and then back to the hotel for swimming. Maddy of course loved the pool even though it was not really that warm and did not want to get out, because mermaids stay in the water. Camden was set in the water and immediately wanted out again (we may be in trouble for our summer trip to Texas which will not doubt include lots of swimming). Maddy finally got out to find the hot tub which was only the temperature of a warm bath and decided that pool was better. She found herself in there with Mark and I am pretty sure talked his ear off. She enjoyed herself, I know though. We went to dinner with some friends and had a great time there as well. Camden even had his first ice cream cone with soy ice cream! He thought it was great.

Friday we all left together to head over to Montrose to meet Benjamin's fiance, Raquel. We stayed in Montrose through Tuesday afternoon. It was a good visit and we found Raquel to be a super cute girl. She was so great with Maddy. Maddy is eagerly looking forward to the wedding this July. We had a great visit playing outside everyday, feeding the ducks, going on walks, playing at the park with the purple slide, and visiting with family. I have decided this post is getting long so I will add photos from our trip in another post once I have them all loaded to the computer.